Teen Friendship Gets Tested After Sexual Assault in Ren Hanami’s New Dramatic Short ‘LIKE LAST NIGHT’

‘Official Selection’ at Culver City Film Festival December 9, 2017

LOS ANGELES (December 6, 2017) – A teenage friendship gets tested after a sexual assault in actress-turned-director Ren Hanami’s new dramatic short, LIKE LAST NIGHT. The coming-of-age film will screen next as an ‘Official Selection’ at the Culver City Film Festival on December 9th.

LIKE LAST NIGHT follows Caroline (Carmen Hodgson) and Alex (Andrea Claux), two high school best friends with very different points of view on life, who are forced to confront what to do after one of them is raped at a party. Will the crisis tear them apart or bond them closer together?

Hanami is excited at the amount of positive feedback she has received for the film since hitting the festival circuit. The London Story First Film Festival recently declared: "This is a heartfelt short about a difficult topic, and is sensitively acted by the cast, including a strong performance by Director Hanami as Caroline’s mother.”

Behind the camera, Hanami has been writing and developing several original projects. She is in-development on the feature film, Ninja Mom; the teen focused spin-off television series pilot, Fashionista Ninja; and the feature film, Native Land, Rising Sun, about a Japanese American girl and Native American girl who meet in the Poston Arizona Internment Camp during World War II.

Hanami is best known in Hollywood for her on-camera work. This fall, she appeared in episodes of the new CBS police-drama S.W.A.T. and TNT’s popular drama Major Crimes. She also recently flexed her funny side recurring as Ernie Hudson’s wife in the fan-favorite comedy, Angie Tribeca; and recurring role as ‘Lynn’ in the critically acclaimed HBO series Silicon Valley. Her previous television credits also include Criminal Minds, Pretty Little Liars, Grey’s Anatomy, Parenthood, Southland, and The Big Bang Theory among others. On the festival circuit, Hanami emerged at the Sundance Film Festival in Marianna Palka’s acclaimed bleak comedy Bitch, starring Jaime King and Jason Ritter.

A Huntington Beach, CA native, Hanami was predominantly influenced by her Hawaiian/Japanese Mother. Proud of her heritage, she currently sits as the National Chairman of the SAG-AFTRA Asian Pacific American Media Committee, which offers moral support and a forum where diverse voices can be heard.